I get Aranda

I don't really have any new mp3s of particular note today, so what I do happen to upload will be chosen more or less at random from whatever comes to hand. May I take this opportunity to stress to you again how important it is that you listen to the following: the Einmusik mix of The Shock, and Todd Terje's astounding paintjob on 'Another Station' by Lindstrom. Both are available to download somewhere below, for a limited time. For the sake of self-validation and pedantry, and possibly your interest, witness my current Top 10:

1. The Shock - Manhattan (Einmusik Remix) // Boxer Sport
2. Lindstrom - Another Station (Todd Terje Remix) // Feedelity
3. Jamie Jones - Amazon // Freak-N-Chic
4. Audiomontage - Bounce 2 The Ounce // Freerange
5. Jona - Learning From Making Mistakes // Get Physical
6. Fairmont - Hotel Deauville // Playmade
7. Bodzin & Huntemann - Message In A Box // Unknown
8. Goldfrapp - Ride A White Horse (Serge Santiago & Ewan Pearson Remixes) // Mute
9. Parker Frisby - Weil Ich In Einer Stadt... // Gomma
10. Chelonis R. Jones - Deer In The Headlights (DJ Hell Remix) // Get Physical

Most, or all, of these tracks are mpthreed in recent posts. If you like what you hear, help the artists to afford their food and rent and cigarettes by visiting Phonica or any other distinguished retailer of wax.

So, what shall we have today? I guess there are a few rules you can abide by in this confusing, Godless age of ours, chief among them being: If in doubt, choose Kompakt. Thomas Fehlmann, my oracle tells me, used to mince around with Palais Schaumburg, an avant-garde outfit from Hamburg,then founded a label and occupied himself with various noodlesome projects, before befriending Alex Paterson from the Orb and contributing to their Cologne-friendly, latterday releases. This solo track turned up on the 'pakt last year, and has an amiable, avuncular groove about it, and an analogue disco feel bobbing through the swathes of techno retrofuturist badness. Makes me want to do a really slow running-man dance. For that to work as a recommendation you really need to know me, and be able to picture me doing it (the image above may give you an inkling).

Download:
Thomas Fehlmann - Schone Grusse // Kompakt





Everyone's sorta digging Tirk at the moment, whether they know it or not. The Maurice Fulton Appreciation Society, whose membership numbers in the nervy thousands, have picked up on the schizoid techno-jazz-noise excursions of his Syclops stuff, while the reconstructed indie kids seem to be hooked on the knowing punk-funk sass of New Young Pony Club. As a member of both those heroic underclasses, I too have been Tirk-crazy in recent months. My favourite release on the London-based label, however, is one with questionable pedigree. Tom Findlay is one half of Groove Armada - scourge of festivals, and purveyors/peddlers of an anodyne 'dance' sound that has found mega-selling favour with the salad-fetishizing, Big Chill-attending gentry that seems to consitute an unhealthy 40% (at least) of the UK's under-forty population. I could spent hours ranting about this peculiarly smug demographic, but I don't think my typing could keep up with the accelerated malice of my thoughts. I once had the misfortune of watching a Groove Armada live set (at Homelands?) and was galled not only by their consummate shitness, but by the warmth of reaction they received from the smiley, awkwardly-jigging audience. It was all drummers with headphones, cod-urban MCs and bald men parping trombones. It was, in short, hell. But anyway...Tom Findlay has excused himself to me by also being one half of SugarDaddy, who released a spunky 12" on Tirk last summer. Comprising four(?) re-edits of strident funk classic 'Love Honey'(?), it was the self-proclaiming 'Acid' mix that caught my attention, and not without reason...Butch disco drums, a tactfully employed vocal and oodles of 303 action were enough to dispel, temporarily at least, memories of that terrifying festival performance. You prolly don't even want to hear it now, but...

Download:
SugarDaddy - Love Honey (Acid) // Tirk



Riding the bus on my way back home today, the knife-through-butter riff of Egoexpress's ludicrously understated 'Aranda' descended on my headphones. It sounded....good. So if you haven't heard this gorgeous canape of processed acoustica before, you know exactly what to do.

Download:
Egoexpress - Aranda // Ladomat